61–70 of 243 posts
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Rather selfish? We'll have enough problems in the coming decades with geriatric baby boomers, you now want to give people the option to live forever?
I have a hunch this is a technology that will take very long to 'trickle down' the forbes list.
Researchers injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound led to the radical reversal in the ageing of the mice. While this is pretty cool, it seems that the most immediate effect would be a higher availability of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), meaning more energy "currency" for the body's machinery to work with [1] [2] (someone…
Charles C. Mann (of 1491 and 1493 fame) wrote extensively about this in The Atlantic Magazine (which is distinct from their website) in 2005: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/05/the-comi... .
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> It's a strange disconnect. I know everyone is thinking what I'm thinking, but you never see this in the articles. Is it some kind of taboo? Sure. It's ridiculously selfish. As you age, you realize your success in all things eventually boils down to experience and ability to execute. Ability to execute wanes with age, as experience is accumulated, so it balances out. Now imagine a spry 20 year old with 60 years of e…
Your thought process is linear. Try to model the consequences. 20 yeas old people will be considered kids and that's it. Otherwise you should opt for euthanasia because 10 year olds have a hard time competing with you today.
In fact, isn't that what's happening in all the countries where longevity has shot up and the fertility rate plummeted?
Researchers injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound led to the radical reversal in the ageing of the mice. While this is pretty cool, it seems that the most immediate effect would be a higher availability of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), meaning more energy "currency" for the body's machinery to work with [1] [2] (someone…
This post fills me with questions. Foremost: What makes anti-aging technology unnatural compared to other medical treatments? To take one example, the smallpox vaccine was initially considered unnatural, and an affront to God[1]. [1] http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitem10.html
I think reflexive appeals to tradition and novelty are both kind of dumb. But if people are going to err, I'd rather they erred on the side of tradition: at least that shit has been demonstrated to work in one fashion or another. I always try to keep in mind examples like Eben Byers [1], the THERAC 25 [2], and rabbits in Australia [3]. All sorts of stupid ideas look appealing at first.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Byers
[2] http://courses.cs.vt.edu/cs3604/lib/Therac_25/Therac_1.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia#Effects_on...
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> It's a strange disconnect. I know everyone is thinking what I'm thinking, but you never see this in the articles. Is it some kind of taboo? Sure. It's ridiculously selfish. As you age, you realize your success in all things eventually boils down to experience and ability to execute. Ability to execute wanes with age, as experience is accumulated, so it balances out. Now imagine a spry 20 year old with 60 years of e…
This is a good opportunity to apply the "reversal test": you say the status quo is better than an envisaged alternative, so let's see how it looks if that alternative is the status quo and someone proposes to switch to what we have now. So: Imagine a world in which people (let's say) stay at 25-year-old health until the age of about 90, and then die quickly. And suppose, in this world, that someone comes along and sa…
I always wonder about this quote, “Whether that means we’ll all live to 150, I don’t know, but the important part is that we don’t spend the last 20 to 30 years of our lives in bad health.” Imagine a process that makes you feel like you are 25 right up until you body gives up at a physical age of 100 or something. Do you end up doing riskier things because you don't "feel" old? And if you did would you die sooner? It…
if they are successful (which I hope they are) then we're talking about pushing back retirement until 90 or maybe 95 right? Which I would be totally OK with. Imagine how much more scientific progress we could make if we had 70-year veterans of their field with the sharp mind of a 27-year-old!
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The same is true of artificial intelligence. For example, articles always mention that brain simulation would help us understand brain diseases (alzheimer, schizophrenia, etc.) better and barely mention the much bigger implications of strong AI (like that it might be the last thing humans ever need to invent).
Maybe most people are not capable of understanding the possibilities of a strong AI? It's not like we will just have a nice sounding personal assistant.
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This post fills me with questions. Foremost: What makes anti-aging technology unnatural compared to other medical treatments? To take one example, the smallpox vaccine was initially considered unnatural, and an affront to God[1]. [1] http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitem10.html
I think it's fair to call most medical treatments unnatural. That doesn't make them bad, but it should make us thoughtful and careful. Natural systems are often, thanks to evolution and adaptation, complicated and delicately balanced. I think reflexive appeals to tradition and novelty are both kind of dumb. But if people are going to err, I'd rather they erred on the side of tradition: at least that shit has been dem…
Could someone counteract me, please?
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Maybe most people are not capable of understanding the possibilities of a strong AI? It's not like we will just have a nice sounding personal assistant.
What can't one understand about "infinite 'free' labour"?
Great for the mice. I don't understand this phrase "Turner said a “magic pill” that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human." ? $50,000 a day for a human ? What is the effect of a day of treatment ?